


Memory

by ladydurin_x



Series: The Carne Collection [2]
Category: Poldark (TV 2015), Poldark - All Media Types
Genre: 5x05, F/M, Mentions of past abuse, Missing Scene, Reckless mixing of Book and Show canon, S5 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 21:34:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20378470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladydurin_x/pseuds/ladydurin_x
Summary: Morwenna thinks over the past few years, and Drake finally finds out what happened to the bracelet.





	Memory

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know what this is. It's a bit of a mess, but I think I'm fairly content with it.

Morwenna stared up at the ceiling as she listened to the sounds of the wind and rain battering the roof. She could hear the telltale sounds of the waves crashing against the rocks, and wondered with a frown just how bad the damage to Sawle Village would be after the storm finally abated.

It was yet another way in which the villagers had marked Morwenna as an outsider. She'd barely been married to Drake a month the first time a storm just offshore kept her awake all night. She'd wondered at her husband's ability to sleep through the cacophony of lashing rain, howling winds, and ominously creaking wood, but when she'd mentioned it to Zacky, he'd shrugged and assured her the village had endured far worse. 

She yawned as she pulled the covers higher up her chest, tugging them tighter around her. It was done more out of habit than any actual reaction to the temperature of the room; as soon as he’d realised how keenly Morwenna always seemed to feel the cold, Drake had become all but obsessed with ensuring the fire was always burning well for her. 

He was always coddling her. With an easy smile, and seemingly endless patience, he'd immediately set about removing any cause of even the smallest distress; even himself. It had been a long while since anyone had taken care of her that way.

A gentle grunt from beside her caught her attention, and she smiled, rolling onto her side to look at her husband.

Even now, Morwenna couldn’t help but marvel at how little Drake had changed over the years. Aside from the scar that split his left eyebrow, and the slight unevenness of his jaw from where the Harry brothers had beaten him to within an inch of his life, he still barely looked a day over seventeen. That same boy she had met on the path along the cliffs.

Back then she had been convinced he was the most beautiful young man she had ever seen. Despite the passing of the years, her opinion remained unchanged. Morwenna wondered sometimes if good looks really were a reflection of the goodness within. 

She pulled her hand free from the covers, before hesitating. But why should she? He was her husband after all. Fully now, not just in name. What a miracle.

With a shaky breath, she ran her fingers along his jaw, smiling again as she felt the beginnings of stubble brush sharply against her fingertips. She’d have to remind him to shave again in the morning. 

Drake snored softly in response to her attentions. She bit back a giggle, moving her fingers instead to his dark curls, marvelling as she always did at how soft they were. 

One day, when Demelza had been helping Morwenna with a steak and kidney pie, having heard Morwenna bemoaning a previous disastrous attempt, the older woman had mentioned that the untameable curls Morwenna now so closely related to her new family, were courtesy of their late mother. Having noticed her undisguised interest, Demelza, only seven years old when her mother passed, had regaled her with stories of her childhood, her late mother, and the antics of her younger brothers for hours. 

Watching Demelza battle her stubborn hair into submitting to being tied out of the way, and listening to stories of Drake as a youngster, had been the first time that Morwenna had truly felt part of the extended Carne family. From the second she had agreed to be Drake’s wife, they had all been unbelievably welcoming and kind to her, even Sam who had always seemed somewhat standoffish, not that she blamed him; she had almost cost his brother his life, but until that moment, she had always felt  _ other _ .

The first time Jeremy had called her Aunt Morwenna, she had thought her heart might burst. Clowance offering her a doll to join her game had been another stand out moment of her early integration into the family. 

She shifted her weight, feeling a slight ache between her legs. In spite of the absolute trust and faith she had in Drake, she had feared that the ache would become a pain as it had every night of her first marriage. Morwenna had been pleasantly surprised to find it had not, and even more so to find that she had genuinely enjoyed her first encounter with Drake. She hadn’t even felt the urge to immediately shield her body once they were finished. Drake hadn’t looked at her the same way  _ he  _ had. 

Morwenna shook her head. To compare Drake to  _ him  _ in any way felt wrong. There could be no comparison.

For so many years, she had felt sick, and tainted by Osborne. She had been convinced he had broken her forever, that she would never be able to bring herself to enjoy even the slightest attention from any man, even Drake. And yet she had. 

The act she had looked upon with revulsion, and _fear_, for years was now desirable. Drake’s gentle touch, and almost reverent way of looking at her had finally washed away the worst of her terror. 

Morwenna knew the scars would never fully leave heal. She knew that she would still have good days, where she longed for Drake’s touch, and bad days where she couldn’t even bear the feeling of him so much as looking at her. She would probably never be entirely free of the nightmares that still plagued her on occasion, even now, but she was finally moving forward. The past was now firmly in the past.

Morwenna was finally ready to be happy. 

She ran her fingertips across Drake’s lips, remembering a time in a darkened room in which he had taken her hand in his, and pressed those gentle, chapped lips to the tops of each of her fingers in turn. Even now the memory was enough to bring a faint blush to her cheeks. 

With a start, she realised that Drake had awoken at some point, and was now watching her with his disarming dark eyes. His expression soft, the way it almost always was when she caught him staring at her. 

It was an expression that reminded her of what it had been like to be a carefree seventeen year old girl staring into the eyes of the boy she loved. The look reminded her that, in spite of everything that had come between them, in spite of the fact that,even now, after almost two years of marriage, she was still a little thin, and sallow, in spite of everything, Drake still looked at her the same way he had all those years ago. That look reminded her that she was safe now, and more than that; she was loved.

He returned her sheepish smile languidly as she moved her hand to run it through his curls once more.

“Was I snoring ‘gain? I telled ‘ee! Kick me in the back!” His voice was rough from sleep, and somewhat muffled by the pillow he had his face pressed against.

Morwenna shook her head, biting back a giggle as she moved to pull her hand away. Drake reached for her wrist, pausing before his fingers made contact with her skin, glancing at her to silently ask for permission. 

He was still afraid he’d frighten her, Morwenna realised as she met his eyes again. That even simply taking her wrist would be an assumption he didn't want to make that she would now be okay with any touch. 

Morwenna nodded readily, smiling sleepily as he gently closed his fingers around her wrist, watching her reaction to even the slightest movement, seemingly nervous that any little motion could be the difference between a comfortable intimacy and too much too soon.

She watched with interest as he turned her arm over carefully, softly pressing his perpetually chapped lips against the soft skin of the inside of her wrist. 

“Morwenna?”

“Hmm?”

“I’ve been meaning to ask.” He stopped, his brow furrowing as he laced their fingers together. “What happened to the bracelet I gived ‘ee?”

Morwenna felt her face warm as she pulled her hand free. It had been years, but her wrist still felt bizarrely naked without the shells against it. Sometimes, lost deep in thought whilst helping the village children with their letters, or preparing an evening meal, Morwenna would move to toy with the loose string, or the shells themselves as she had countless times over the years, only to be confronted by its absence and remember.

“Did that man take it?” Drake’s voice was barely a whisper.

She shook her head, shuffling closer. “No. Nothing like that.”

By some miracle, Osborne had never noticed the bracelet she resolutely refused to take off. Even Rowella, usually so perceptive, had never once mentioned it. The only time anyone had come close was the night Morwenna had been sat beside the fire, bouncing John Conan on her knee. His chubby little hands had made a grab for the frayed string, and she had panicked. Even that hadn’t been enough to distract Osborne from the bonbons he had been shovelling into his mouth with an astonishing speed. Morwenna had managed to intercept John Conan's hand without incident. After that, she had been much more careful. 

The thought of her son sent a pang through Morwenna’s chest.

She breathed in deeply, reaching forward to play with a loose thread on Drake’s nightshirt to steady herself. Morwenna bit back a smile as she remembered his embarrassed determination to recover the garment from the floor - for propriety’s sake.

“It wasn’t long after you came to the vicarage; after I sent you away with no explanation. I was devastated, Drake, but I knew I had to let you go. Let the  _ idea  _ of you go. It wasn’t fair to keep holding on to you when I was so broken, and could offer you nothing.”

She put her fingers against his lips when she saw he’d opened his mouth to interrupt.

“Please, let me finish?”

Drake nodded, pressing a quick kiss to her fingertips, before taking her hand in his own, and holding it tightly against his chest.

“During the four years I was married, I kept my word. I never took it off. Not once. Even when looking at it, and allowing myself to remember what we’d had was almost too much to bear. After  _ he  _ died, and you came to me, I realised I had to. I knew that sending you away had to be the end of it. I had to let go of everything I’d been holding onto for four years. More than anything I had to let go of the girl I’d been; the one who had loved you so much she had married a monster to save your life. If I’d kept the bracelet, I’d never have been able to do that. So, I went to the cliffs.”

She closed her eyes as Drake wiped a stray tear from her cheek. 

“And I said goodbye. To you, to that girl. To the days we’d spent on the sand at Hendrawna. All of it. I threw it into the sea. Oh, Drake, it was like tearing out my own heart. You know, it was so bitterly cold and windy that I thought I might be blown in after it.” She swallowed painfully against the lump in her throat. “I think there was a part of me that would have welcomed it.”

The tears were now flowing freely down her cheeks, and when she finally allowed herself to open her eyes, she saw that Drake was not faring much better. 

He sniffled, ducking his head with an embarrassed chuckle when he realised she was watching him. “Forgive me. I haven’t behaved this badly since the day I lost ‘ee.”

With a new found confidence, she took his face between her hands, pulling him closer. She pressed her lips against his briefly, tasting the salt of his tears as he immediately deepened the kiss.

It was a kiss that said everything she had wanted to say during the four years they had spent apart, even more so than their earlier lovemaking. It was a promise of the life of happiness that lay before them.

She pulled away, resting her forehead gently against his. “You’ll never lose me again,” she promised, whispering against his lips.

“I love you,” he murmured, resuming the kiss which Morwenna returned with as much enthusiasm as she could muster.

Even Drake’s love couldn’t wash away all of the damage and pain caused by her first marriage, but as Morwenna listened to the sounds of the howling wind and rain outside, slowly but surely drowned out by the sounds of their lovemaking, she knew with absolute certainty that the future, their future, was bright.


End file.
